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Marlins stadium vote #2: The webcast

The Miami-Dade County Commission meeting on the Florida Marlins ballpark proposal is underway; you can watch live here, though the feed is pretty jerky on my computer. They’re still in public comments at the moment (1:48 pm), so this could go on awhile.

I’ll be out for a chunk of the afternoon, so will post results when I return, if it’s been decided. In the meantime, please play nice in the comments field…

UPDATE: The commission finally voted 9-4 late in the evening to approve the Florida Miami Marlins stadium deal. More on this when it’s not 1 a.m.

Unless I missed it, Martinez did not get any additional concessions today. But most of the Commissioners emphasized that a lot of the changes disclosed at the City vote on Friday, were actually based on County Commissioners concerns etc.

Martinez just noted that he did not want his concerns to completely derail the vote and that he was able to fully explore improvements to the deal before today.

If so, that was an awfully long walk just to get a bigger share of a team sale that probably isn’t going to happen in the nine-year time frame. But everybody got their pictures in the paper – that’s what’s important.

I honestly have a tremendous doubt about how much the interest the fans in South Florida have in the Marlins, but the point is that they are staying put, and movement or contraction are off the table. The only people happier than Marlins ownership, is MLB, because one of the problem child franchises has been dealt with once and for all. The only franchise that is an immediate issue is of course, the A’s, and by getting the Marlins situation taken care of, it will allow MLB to focus in on the A’s, and trying to get them to San Jose. If they succeed, they will have overcame the odds, and can start to overcome years of neglect, and negative publicity.

One wonders what is going on with the fans of what was once the Montreal Expos who had hoped that Loria would experience an epic fail on his quest to get away with the stunt he pulled to get out of Dodge…I mean Quebec, and into a new stadium down in Miami.